Chapter Text
There was a sound that could only have been Glitch sweeping the entire contents of his workbench to the floor, and he laid X down on it, gently, and peeled the blanket back. "Oh…shit. You poor thing. I'd kill whoever did this to you but Toxotes told me he's already dead, and good thing, because I wouldn't be nearly as nice about it as they were." X didn't remember that, but he'd missed a lot, drifting in and out of lucidity. Glitch began lining up tools, pulling down boxes and making a new pile of things on the bench.
"Szzzztttzzorry…for being…so much trouble," X apologized, weakly.
"V, buddy, none of that shit now," Glitch shushed him. "You're gonna be okay, if I have anything to say about it. But, uh." He paused in lining up tools and materials. "You know, I almost forgot to ask you if it's okay with you. Is this what you want?"
X blinked, eyelids slightly out of sync. "What I want?"
"Yeah. If you…don't want me to. Uh. I don't think you'd make it, but…I'm not gonna force anything on you. Especially something like…I know you don't like maintenance, so this is probably—"
X cut him off, placing one hand that trembled with the effort of being lifted over Glitch's. "I trzzttzust you."
Glitch brightened. "Good, 'cause I'm the best there is. But, uh, seriously, if you need me to stop or something…"
'>I'll let you know,' X sent, because speaking with a tetchy speech synthesizer was sorely trying his few remaining nerves.
"I think your clothes are gonna be forfeit. Moving you enough to take them off might make things worse."
'>Just save my jacket, if you can,' X requested, though the fuzz in his circuits was so intense that it took him a few tries to remember how to even say 'jacket,' and in the end he'd actually settled on 'armor shirt,' but it was close enough.
"You got it." With a pair of shears, Glitch made short work of X's clothes, very gently and carefully helping him out of his armored jacket. He whistled, low and concerned. "He really just tried to thump you apart, didn't he…God damn. You're leaking all over, your arm's got a bent frame…this has got to hurt."
'>Not as much as it should,' X broadcast. 'Nothing feels real right now.'
"Reploids do have a shock state. I'd be surprised if you didn't, too, and that isn't great, because it means you've been through way too much for your systems to manage. When it wears off, you're going to be a very unhappy camper, unless I can patch you up some before then. Here's what I need to do. I can connect you to the new pod, then connect to it wirelessly, and read your status for myself. I can maybe override your pain processing and try to stabilize some systems manually, but I don't know how much control you have over allowing or denying access to that. I won't do anything you don't want me to do, though, I promise."
X tried to reply, but all that came out was a prolonged buzz as his vocal synthesizer hung and then crashed completely. '>It's fine, Glitch,' he sent instead. 'Do whatever you think is necessary. You're the best there is.'
Glitch heaved a sigh of relief he didn't even try to hide. "Well, then, let's not waste any more time. We gotta get you stable before you lose all your coolant all over my desk and overheat to death." Glitch brought out a long, heavy recharge pod extension cable, plugging it into the pod and then into X through a gap between the pushed-together tables he called a workbench. It took a little wiggling to get the connector to seat in X's dented port, but it did, and after the initial handshake with the pod, X received a request to allow diagnostic access. X closed his eyes for a moment and allowed it. Data flowed past behind his eyelids, more than he could consciously process, so he opened them again rather than watch. Glitch must have been analyzing it, as he had the unseeing gaze of a reploid intently watching something other than visual input.
"Damn, how are you even functioning…" X generated and sent several more reports with no input on his part. "I'll do my best. Let's see if your systems will even let me touch your code…"
Red lights and intrusion attempt alerts flooded X's field of vision, and he involuntarily recoiled with a pained sound. The motion reverberated throughout his damage sensors, echoing more loudly before it died down. "Ah, shit, sorry, that might be a no," Glitch apologized.
'>Let me try something,' X sent, teeth gritted, and one at a time, he began manually closing every alert as it popped up. His entire life, he'd been primed to reject any code modifications. Granted, he'd had a few via the upgrades that had been left for him, but even those he hadn't actually wanted, just accepted as a necessity, and they had bypassed his protections without so much as asking. Between that and the Virus, he had never once considered trusting someone with his code.
But maybe he could, if he made an effort. This was Glitch asking, after all. And he was asking, not just connecting and pushing an update. If he couldn't trust Glitch, he couldn't trust anybody anymore. The alerts slowed, and so did the rattling of his remaining fans. Somewhere towards the bottom of the list, he found that the alerts had begun to load as approval requests as his internal systems slowly learned after the first few hundred that he was intentionally letting this happen. He put them aside in a little column of their own until he'd cleared out all of the alerts, and then began, one at a time, to allow each of them.
X would have been lying if he had said it didn't make him nervous. No, nervous wasn't the word; he was terrified. Each new acceptance opened another port to the data stream, and waiting on the other end was not just a repair terminal, but another entire person. A person who was ready to take on Seren's entire gang for me if he had to, X thought. Someone who sat with me while I overheated with anxiety, who knows who I am and what I've done, and still wants to be around me. If I can't even trust Glitch, I'm done trying to live.
He allowed the connection to fully initialize, and closed his eyes again, acutely aware of the strange second presence in his systems. X had gotten unfortunately accustomed to upgrade capsules, who seemed to think they knew what was best for him, and he'd come to recognize the Maverick Virus with its violent attempts to hack and slash its way in, but Glitch was a new, third thing altogether, making no sudden moves and simply existing in his mental space, respecting his boundaries.
What a strange feeling that was. It probably shouldn't have been, and yet.
You still okay, V? he asked, and it took X a moment to register that he hadn't heard Glitch actually speak. The words had been transmitted directly into his awareness like digital synesthesia, tinged with worry and vague images and the sensation of warmth.
I'm okay, he answered, but whatever extra information Glitch's words carried must have been nothing compared to what X's held, because he could feel Glitch's struggle to process his reply. Are you?
Wow. I did not think it was possible to load that much into this communication protocol, especially in that short of a message. I almost didn't understand that, Glitch said with a laugh, and affectionate concern, and a memory of sunlight through a window in colors X had never seen. You've been through so much. It kind of bleeds across.
I don't know what you're seeing, but I can try to dial it back, X offered, but Glitch shook his head no without actually moving. X wouldn't have seen it anyway. Having his eyes open while also trying to process Glitch's mixed speech-memories-images-sensations was too much to deal with.
Don't worry about it. It's a lot, but it's you, so it's okay. X felt the phantom sensation of a cheek resting against his chest plates, and realized it was his cheek, and this was Glitch's memory of him. His own memory reached across the synapse in reply, the shared connection entangling them until he'd lost track of who was whom for a moment.
I should get started, Glitch thought, reluctantly pulling some of the tendrils of his consciousness free. If I can dull some of your sensor input, you'll feel a lot better. Your code's a little different than what I'm used to seeing—a dizzying, blended swirl of memories of every reploid Glitch had worked on flooded across; X recognized Hammer, having an eye replaced amidst the rush, nearly everyone in the camp, and others besides that he didn't quite recognize, but telling the difference was hard with Glitch's familiarity coloring the images—but I think the basics are still the same, and there's a few notes in my database that should make it make sense. I hope. Just let me know if anything doesn't seem right.
I will, X promised. A series of modification access prompts sprang up, all of them digitally signed by Toyota Robotics Technician Lightspeed 2-0094, and as he manually accepted each one, the pain in his systems receded, a little at a time, to almost nothing for the first time in almost a decade. The relief was so visceral that he drew a breath, his eyes stinging with tears for which he didn't have the water. Even that didn't exactly hurt. It was just a sensation.
Damn, V, I knew you had it rough all the time, but I didn't realize until I was adjusting the actual numbers.
I didn't either, until it stopped. If X had paused to think about how much his body actually hurt, he'd have given up entirely. The trick was to never make eye contact with it. If he didn't acknowledge it, he didn't have to deal with it.
That's no way to live, Glitch chided him gently, clearly having picked up his thought. X wondered what it looked like from his end. He was fairly certain that half of Glitch's words were just impressions that he was translating. I can't leave the patch in forever, because it'll deaden out too many of your other senses, but at least it's something for now. Alright. Time to see what I can fix. Just relax, okay? I promise I won't hurt you.
I know you won't. X already couldn't feel most of his body, and with a few more prompts, Glitch disconnected X's access to his own movement systems. He'd always hated this part of any major repair process. He couldn't stand being completely helpless while someone else, usually someone he barely knew, had absolute power over him. And what if they were infected and going undetected, and finally had their chance to strike? Or if there was a major attack while he was out of commission, and he couldn't even react? Old anxieties bubbled up within him, and with a buzzing sound, a broken fan tried to kick on.
Glitch must have picked up his anxieties via their connection. The past has been unkind to you, but I won't be. Even if the Drifters came right this moment, we've got everyone on high alert and standing by, and I've got you. Don't worry. His words were like warm fingers combed through X's hair, while his actual fingers gently pried X's bent panels away from his internals, making a tidy stack of them. X's broken fan settled back to silence. But maybe don't try too hard to see what I'm seeing, unless you like looking at your own components. Most reploids don't, I've kinda found out.
X decided that was good advice. Sorry. I never had to actually think about how messed up I really am until recently.
Nothing to apologize for, Glitch thought, with a laugh that entwined with X's fears, dispelling them just a little. You learned to survive how you had to. He began to empty X's coolant system to replace the broken pieces. Several heat warnings popped up, but Glitch aimed a desk fan at X's open chassis, and they subsided somewhat on their own.
I guess I did. It doesn't really help now, though.
From the brief glimpse I got of your memories, you're doing an alright job unlearning it now. Glitch worked quickly, even for a specialized technician. He found and disconnected the dead coolant pump, setting it aside, and sorted through a few potential replacements, comparing each. X saw a faint afterimage of them on the insides of his eyelids, Glitch's vision bleeding through, until Glitch must have seen the echo of his own output through X and clamped down on it. Don't ask where I got these. You already know, anyway. The impressions that came through now were guarded and dull at the most; he was actively trying to not broadcast anything that X would find distressing.
Glitch…you can see into my mind right now, and you're a technician. Be honest. Am I really a Maverick? Or just irregular? Or am I just getting upset about nothing?
Glitch sent him a clear impression of the sensation of a raised eyebrow. V, lemme tell you something. You're a kaleidoscope when you talk while we're connected like this. The mental image Glitch mirrored back to him was vivid, almost overwhelmingly so; a starburst of harsh colors and cold light and memory and feeling. Anguish, bitter victory, and wrenching loss flowed into each other like paint, beautiful but sorrowful in equal parts.
It's incredible, Glitch continued. Blinding, even. There's so little happiness in it, though, it's hard to look at. But then the flashes I see when you think about your time here, or…about me, it's entirely different. This time, the swirl of impressions was warm, glowing but not blinding, quiet and comfortable. Anxious grays hummed in the background, but the shapes of the memories were softer, the outlines blending together until X could barely pick the pieces apart anymore. There was only warmth, the gentle impression of a circle of friends, and the glint of racing green paint in the firelight.
Oh. X felt more vulnerable now than he had having his systems disconnected from his control…but he didn't feel unsafe, even with his emotions on full display. But maybe that wasn't terrible, if it was just Glitch. Maybe that was easier than having to sort it out alone.
The smile that Glitch broadcast to him was contagious, and he would have smiled back had he had access to his facial features. Instead he reflected it mentally, like a mirror that returned emotions instead of images. I can tell you that you're throwing an awful lot of TLR errors and have been for God only knows how long, but I can't tell you if that makes you a Maverick, irregular, or just weird as hell, and honestly, what's the difference, right? Call it whatever you want, Glitch continued, but you've definitely made some kinda home for yourself with a bunch of Mavericks, and I'm glad you did.
You know, right? Reploids who associate with me for too long die, X told him, drily. It was part gallows humor, part sincere warning, because it was true and he couldn't imagine letting it happen to Glitch. He'd never be able to forgive himself.
Yeah, hate to break it to you, but that's not exactly a secret. At the rate you're going, though, I'm gonna burn myself out early and still outlive you anyway, so I think I'm gonna risk it for as long as you'll let me. The thought was playful and serious at the same time, with an undercurrent of challenge.
X had lost track of what Glitch was doing until he suddenly got several messages about his coolant system having been flushed and reinitialized, and his core temperature stabilized. There. First hurdle cleared. The coolant's kind of old, but it'll do. You're a lot less likely to suddenly brick right on my bench. Now the real fun one…you sprung a pretty impressive self-repair nanofluid leak or several and it hasn't actually self-repaired, and fuck if I know why, because that should've been the one thing that could handle itself.
It took some exploratory disassembly, but Glitch found the leaks, replacing parts until he was finally able to refill X with several relatively fresh cans of nanofluid without it all leaking back out. The blanket that X still laid on was shining silver by the time he'd finished, and Glitch had to take a short break to wipe both his workbench and X down, tossing the blanket aside. Sorry. I know you get cold. Kinda starting to become a static discharge hazard, though.
It's fine. I can't feel anything from my mind down, X thought, amused. He'd avoided looking directly at the mess that was his body while he could still open his eyes, and he really couldn't feel either the presence or lack of any bedding, but he could see well enough through Glitch's mind what the other reploid was up to.
Shh. Working, here, Glitch deflected, though not bothering to hide his relief at X's sense of humor still functioning despite everything.
He wasn't quite satisfied with X's self-repair system, though, and he browsed quickly but extensively through X's internal schema and thought aloud to himself about potential explanations. X mentally quieted and simply listened, letting the synesthetic sound of Glitch's voice settle over him like a blanket that he actually could feel. Once upon a time, in what felt like a different life, he'd been involved in reploid R&D as well, but technology had moved on while he hadn't caught up, and much of what Glitch thought was opaque to him.
Were you? I didn't know that.
Even not actively thinking, it seemed that he must have been broadcasting something intelligible. But then, perhaps Glitch was doing the same. The longer they were connected, the more they felt like a single, interlocked mind.
Definitely. There's not much you can hide over a direct connection, Glitch agreed.
How am I looking? X asked, because his thoughts had started to drift repeatedly to how this wasn't such a bad thing at all, and he wasn't quite ready to stare that one down, especially with an audience that could see right through him.
Well, I wouldn't call it good. You've got hairline cracks in components all over the place, your torso panels are flattened to hell, and I'm gonna have to entirely disconnect and strip down your arm to get the frame back into place, and even then, it's probably going to be more fragile. Predictions of potential metal fatigue patterns filled his mind's eye for a moment. I dunno what's up with your self-repair…I've never seen a setup quite like yours. I think I can get you back into shape, though. It won't be a fast process, but I'll be with you for it, if you want me to do it.
X didn't even hesitate. Please. It's okay if you can't fix my self-repair. I'm not sure anyone can.
I kinda have a hypothesis about it, actually, but it's pretty weak, Glitch thought, and it wouldn't actually solve much of anything, but…when did you start having this happen?
X almost began to explain, but then, that was effort he didn't have energy for, and it was easier to just remember it and let Glitch watch. It had been nothing short of a miracle that he'd made it to see the end of the Maverick Wars...and nothing short of a slap in the face that it had been such a relatively minor thing that permanently scrambled his circuits.
Just an IED. A parting gift, from a group of irregulars that he hadn't been able to talk down. Like so many other veterans, human and reploid alike, throughout hundreds of years of history, that was all it had taken in the end. An explosion no different from countless others X had shaken off, except this time he didn't, and nobody knew why. The longer it went on, the worse he got, until he couldn't walk unassisted. He'd seen every specialist that Hunter HQ had, and still, he had no answers, just a new fear of invasive systems analyses.
Oof. V, buddy, I'm sorry. That's rough. And, uh, when did you start feeling like you didn't fit into your own life anymore?
Right around the same time. Maybe a bit before that, X recalled, somberly. The idea of Glitch's hand rumpled the idea of X's hair, bringing him out of his impending gloom.
So, I'm an expert, right, but I'm not an expert on your systems, because frankly I don't think there is a such thing at this point, but every reploid has an internal schema that directs repair processes, not unlike human DNA.
I'm familiar, X said, mentally nodding for Glitch to go on.
I think yours is…different. From what I can tell, yours is way more complex than any I've ever seen, and I think it's because you were designed from the start to be able to evolve on your own way more than any of us were. You've picked up a lot of changes over the years. But I think maybe it doesn't know what to make of you anymore, because I don't think you know what to make of you.
So my self-repair is incompatible with the rest of me? X asked, radiating question marks all the way down his connection with Glitch.
That's the summary. I mean, I could be totally wrong too, right? X could hear the sound of Glitch working near his head, and he steadfastly did not look. He didn't need to see himself being disassembled, even if he did trust his disassembler absolutely.
No, it…makes sense, actually. I don't know who I am, or what I'm supposed to be doing. I don't even recognize myself most of the time. If that's what it's working from, it probably doesn't know what it's supposed to be doing either.
The only indication X had that Glitch had finished detaching his arm was an informational message; not a warning, not even an error. His systems had evidently decided that this was a total non-issue, and he was oddly pleased about this. Maybe he could still learn how to trust.
You're doing great. If you could see yourself the way I—wait, you can. I could just show you, if you want.
X paused, hesitating. He could guess, more or less, but he was already sick at heart from a lifetime on a pedestal, and seeing it from another angle wouldn't convince him of anything new.
A pedestal? Come on, you know me better than that. I got all my idolizing out of my system way back anyway. X couldn't even understand the brief flood of images that burst through from Glitch's memories. Pages and pages of documentation and math he couldn't understand, the mental texture of a series of firewalls, a circle of reploids lying on the floor, an intense feeling of envy…X had no idea what he was looking at, and didn't ask. Yeah, best not to. It's kinda bullshit anyway. Look. If you don't wanna, I won't, but it's not what you're expecting.
X tried to draw a breath, only to be reminded that he wasn't connected to his body to even do so. …Okay. I'll trust you.
Glitch calmly continued to take X's bent arm apart a piece at a time, while over their shared connection, he began to draw a picture. Draw wasn't quite the right word, X realized. It was more that he was releasing his control over his thoughts and allowing the picture to bleed across on its own. He had to try not to draw it, with every clock cycle of their conversation.
X saw himself, saw V, through Glitch's eyes. He was so small. His glass-green eyes wandered everywhere except where he was really looking, incongruously tired and so very old in an eternally young face. V spoke little. He didn't smile. He could barely walk, but refused to hold still. He was so sad. A brief flash of memory, of Glitch's hands twisting into his jacket, of Glitch's heartsick shock at realizing that this strange little reploid wanted to die, and then, a brief flash of his own memory: he would have let Glitch kill him. He felt his—no, he felt Glitch's heart go out to him, like a magnetic pull in his core. The two things were hard to tell apart, interlocked as they were. I hope he'll be okay. I wonder what happened to him. I wonder what he looks like when he smiles. I wonder if I can make him smile. I wonder if he can even allow himself to.
I can try.
V was a difficult cipher. He was so alone. He gave nothing of himself away if he could help it. Did he even have anything left to give? Glitch worried about him, wanted to reach out to him, didn't want to scare him away. V didn't trust easily, if at all, and the difference between a friendly advance and an enemy encroaching seemed to be razor fine for him, and yet, seeing him curled into a shivering ball, terrified even of himself, Glitch couldn't not try to comfort him. I hope he doesn't run from me. I wonder what hurt him like this. I wonder what he sounds like when he laughs. I wonder if I can make him laugh. I wonder if he even remembers how to trust.
I don't, but I'm learning.
And V was a fighter, even long after his fight had run out. Despite everything, he was so kind. He couldn't turn away from someone in need, no matter how small their need, no matter how great his own. He could barely walk, but he walked all over, shoring up defenses, scavenging, sorting, training self-defense, pouring energy he didn't have into everyone around him. He was so strong. He broke down only to get up again and keep going, over and over, no matter what it cost him. Of course V was X. Any idiot with eyes could have seen that. Glitch's embarrassment at not realizing it sooner became X's for a moment, then it passed. I hope he doesn't have to leave. I wonder if he will, in the end. I wonder what he's like when he's happy. I wonder if I can make him happy. I wonder if he's ever even been happy.
I've been happy with you.
Have you? Glitch asked, coalescing out of the blur of his own memories into the present again.
I have. It's been terrifying. X wasn't sure when he'd started responding, or what exactly he'd said, but there was no point in hiding anything while they were one mind.
Why?
I can't lose what I don't have.
A laugh, a gentle one, rippled across the connection. Don't look at it like that. Everything ends, right? That's the nature of things. You'll end, I'll end; that's just how it is. So why worry about it? Be happy it began.
X wanted to believe so badly his chest ached, despite it being disconnected from him in multiple pieces across the workbench. Everything I've had and everyone I've known have ended. I don't know if I can survive another ending. Maybe the next one will be mine.
Maybe it will be.
X balked. You aren't supposed to agree with me.
Yeah, but so what if it is, right? Take whatever you can get from life while you can still get it. You've already given way more than enough. If all you want is to sit in the sun for a bit with a few friends, that's not asking too much.
It's that easy?
Nah, it's that hard. Life doesn't want to give reploids like us anything, so we gotta steal happiness from the world with both hands and bite the fingers off of anyone fool enough to come between us and it.
Did you have to make it about biting people…?
It's like you keep forgetting I'm a Maverick. I think I should get some leniency in saying unhinged things. And so should you, Glitch said, directly transmitting the full sensory suite of the experience of pointing accusingly at X. Speaking of you. When I get you repaired, what do you want to do first?
Ah…I don't really know. X radiated empty confusion, though not for long. Bright conviction filled his circuits, and his doubts fled. Deal with the remaining Drifters, because there's no chance they won't be coming for us.
V, come on. I asked you what you wanted, not what you thought you had to do.
I do want that, though. I still hope it's something we can settle without violence, but if that's what it takes, I want to protect this place and everyone in it.
Hah, well, I guess I can't argue with that. And then what?
Going for three again?
Absolutely.
X thought it over, well aware that his thoughts were Glitch's, and Glitch's thoughts were his own. Alright. Second thing… No, he couldn't say new clothing again, he'd used that one already last time. No hot shower, either, that was too easy. And not routine maintenance, because Glitch was doing that along with the repairs.
Do not say 'a nap,' either, Glitch playfully scolded him before he could even form the thought completely.
Glitch, I am at least ten times your age, let me have this.
Okay, okay. Fine. You can have your old man nap. What's the third thing?
I'd like to just sit in the sun with you for a bit, X thought, before he could even stop himself, which was just as well because he didn't want to stop himself anyway. It sounded nice when you said it before.
Oh. Well. Only if you promise to bite the fingers off anybody who tries to stop you, Glitch joked.
…Yeah. Maybe I will bite their fingers off. I might even enjoy it. X laughed, genuine and golden across their connection. What a terrible place to finally find happiness again, he thought. In a thousand broken parts spread across a workbench, in a condemned and crumbling city center, with a Maverick no less.
Who bites fingers off, Glitch added, helpfully.
Yes. A Maverick who may or may not have bitten anyone's fingers off yet, but is clearly ready and willing to do so, and is talking me into doing it too.
I was right, by the way.
About what?
You do have a nice laugh.
You can't make me blush, X thought, flustered and entirely lacking any ability to hide it. I don't even have a face right now, and my synthetic skin never had that capability.
That's fine. You're cute even without a face.
"What in the world are you grinning at?" Kathy's voice cut into their shared reverie. X heard it more through Glitch's sensors than his own, which was a very odd sensation. He was privately glad that he couldn't have moved his face even had he wanted to, because he'd entirely lost faith in his ability to hide any given emotion he was having, and he was certainly having enough of them right now.
"Huh? Kat. Wow. Don't just barge in without even knocking," Glitch scolded. "I could be doing something super delicate and one wrong move could be the end of V."
She pressed her hands to her mouth and backed away. "Oh no, I hadn't even thought about that. I'm sorry. I can come back later. I just wanted to ask you a few things about the Dri—ex-Drifters that came over with you, but it can wait."
"Goddamn, I'm messing with you. But I am, uh, pretty busy." He made a vague, silvery-fingered gesture towards the sheer number of parts of X were across his workbench. "So yeah. Later? Analog can probably fill you in for now, whatever it is."
"He's…okay, right?" Kathy asked, hesitantly glancing at X with wide eyes.
"Nothing I can't fix. Well, no, that's not entirely true. Several somethings I can't fix, but lots of things I can. He's not nearly as dead as he looks, trust me. We've been having a conversation this whole time." Glitch tapped his temple, which was not where his wifi module actually was, but everyone seemed to understand this gesture much better than him tapping a random spot on his abdomen.
"Ah." Kathy gave him an appraising look. "I'll leave you two alone, then."
"Wait, no, it's not like that," Glitch protested to her retreating back, and then to the closed door.
It is kind of like that.
Shush, you.
X quickly lost track of how long Glitch labored to put him back together. He couldn't have quite said whether they conversed or simply communed. Time was a strange thing when he had no discernible physical presence to himself. His system clock tracked it as usual, but it had no relevance to him.
X continued to drift in and out of consciousness. He was exhausted, damaged, and overwhelmed, and as his systems began to recover from their shock, his mind grew lethargic from the strain. Glitch's presence took the edge off of it all, his code modifications and repairs handled the rest, and between those things, X felt…something he'd felt so infrequently that he wasn't even sure how to describe it. Secure? Cared for? Loved, maybe?
Whatever it was, the warm bubble he found himself in now combined with the crushing exhaustion of the past day and his injuries to send X to sleep. He defragmented in fits and starts, and all the while, Glitch worked, talking to him when he was alert enough for it, and letting him rest as he needed in the interim.
Finally, X awakened, rising to awareness through the slow fog that filled his head. Good morning, Glitch transmitted, cheerfully. Late evening morning, but whatever. I'd ask how you're feeling, but I have the complete readout right here, and I still haven't turned your usual pain processing back on, so I already know you're going to say 'good.'
I…yeah, I was going to say that, X admitted.
I've just about got you reassembled. It's been…oh, fourteen or fifteen hours or so, total. Eighteen or nineteen hours for me, but that's normal, I just live at a speed of 1.25 seconds per second all the time. But I've got your chassis panels back in shape, your cooling system's repaired and flushed, self-repair is patched up and finally seems more or less active, lots of replaced capacitors, got your arm's frame straightened out, and goddamn, V, I have never seen joints as old and worn out as yours. I did what I could. Hopefully they'll at least stick less. Also, he added, I cleaned all the coolant out of your voice module, and you still talk in your sleep.
X groaned inwardly, which was still as good as outwardly. Please tell me I didn't say anything ridiculous. Wait. Did you see what I was dreaming…?
I behaved myself and didn't watch, even though you projected it pretty hard. Glitch wiped his hands on a rag, tossing it into a plastic bucket in the corner, full of similarly abused fabric. Nothing on the Drifters front yet either, though all three of our new friends agree that it's almost guaranteed to happen, and soon. But don't stress about it. You're fixed up, as much as I can on the equipment I've got, but you've got a lot of self-repair to do still and we don't know how much it'll actually handle. But you should be good to disconnect now and see how you feel.
Right… X surprised himself. Was that actual disappointment that he felt? Did he, in fact, want to stay mentally connected with Glitch? It had been nice, he reflected. Maybe it wasn't surprising. He'd almost never felt seen so thoroughly and intimately, and only once before had he felt so unconditionally accepted…and that had been decades ago.
Yeah, me too, but we got business to take care of. Let's get your code back to original. Let me know if anything's too much to deal with and I'll take a second look at it. Glitch began methodically rolling back the changes he'd made to X's pain processing, and his old aches and pains crept back in. He had a few new ones besides; even repaired, his arm tingled slightly.
But his joints did feel a little better, he realized with relief, and he seemed to be throwing fewer actuator calibration errors. He could handle everything else a bit more easily with less of that taking up his processing power.
There we go. That should be everything. Nothing left but to close the connection.
Ah, before you do, X thought, quickly. I wanted to say…thank you.
Thank you, too. Glitch's mind enveloped him one last time, and with a final sensation of fingers combing through his messy hair, Glitch closed his connection with the recharging pod they'd used as an intermediary.
"Alright. Let's see how you handle." Glitch had X's old clothes at the ready, clean and more or less folded, and his cane alongside them. X dressed, feeling less stiff than he had for a while, and with Glitch hovering at his side just in case, he got to his feet.
"Not bad at all," he declared, after a moment of forgetting that he had to speak out loud again if he wanted Glitch to hear him. Even his voice felt a little easier to use, though that might have been purely mental. "I wouldn't trust myself without my cane, still, and I've got some new aches in other places instead…but it's a little better. I'll gladly take that over worse for a change."
Glitch offered X his arm. "Don't overdo it to start. You've been through an awful lot in a short time."
X sighed, looping his free arm though Glitch's. "Believe me, I haven't forgotten." The two left the building, arriving in the encampment's little plaza, where everyone who wasn't stationed on guard duty sat around the fire pit, weapons already holstered just in case. Valentina looked up, spotted X, and glowed with excitement suddenly, as bright as a second fire.
"V's up!" she exclaimed, and within moments X was swarmed.
"Oh, X, or V, or whatever you want to be called, I'm so sorry," Kathy apologized.
"Hey, how you feelin'?" Hammer wanted to know, giving X a gentle slap on the back that would have knocked him over had he not been holding Glitch's elbow.
"Hey, hey, easy on the merchandise, I just got him fixed and he's still full of hairline cracks," Glitch playfully scolded.
Valentina pressed her way through the crowd and threw her arms around X for a hug, startling him. He hesitantly gave her one back, one-handedly and with his cane in his hand, but at least it was something. "I was so worried about you and Glitch didn't even come out and give us any updates!"
"I was busy, Val," Glitch said, as if he'd already explained this several times. "Also, holy shit, guys, give him some ventilation room, he only just got up." Glitch herded everyone away from X, hovering protectively.
"It's fine, Glitch. Really," X said, which deterred Glitch not at all. He waved everyone away until X found a seat by the fire, and even then, he took a seat by his side. Era, Toxotes, and Analog were there as well, though they had chosen to hang back.
Kathy pulled up a cinder block next to X. "I mean it, V. I owe you an apology a hundred times over. I panicked, and I accused you of all kinds of horrible things, and—"
X put a hand on Kathy's forearm, and she paused. "I should have been upfront from the start."
She shook her head vehemently, though she didn't push his hand away. In fact, she placed hers over his, looking him in the eyes. "No, I mean it. You didn't deserve that. For however long as you want to stay here, we're happy to have you. Whoever you are, and whoever you've been, all that matters is that you helped us a lot in a very short time and we—I, especially—didn't hold up my end of that at all, because I let fear cloud my judgment, even though I know better. And Hammer and I talked about it too…we told everyone already, but we still owe you a full explanation of what actually happened."
"I thought I heard Valentina getting excited about something," said Drive, emerging from the makeshift housing. Focus was right behind him, drumming his fingertips together excitedly and grinning. "How are you feeling, V?"
"I'm alright," he answered, honestly for a change. "Glitch does good work."
"I told you so," Glitch muttered under his breath, but he was smiling too broadly for his mock offense to be even a little believable.
'>It's good to see you up and about,' Focus broadcast.
'>It's good to be up and about,' agreed X with a smile, before turning back to Kathy. "It's alright. I mean," he hastily amended when she opened her mouth to interrupt him, "I mean that I accept your apology. I'd like to hear the whole story, when you're ready to tell it. I saw enough to know that I'm not going to judge you for it. If I were in your situation, I'd probably have done the same, and I know that you wanted to protect everyone here. I do too. Whatever I can offer to keep us safe, I'm happy to give."
Kathy smiled tearfully and squeezed his hand before releasing it. "Thank you. If there's anything I can do to make it up to you…"
"Keep treating me like V. That's all I really want." X picked his hand up from her arm. "I didn't realize how much I needed to get some distance from my past until it was too late to tell you who I am without seeming like I'd lied. For whatever it's worth, I'm also sorry that I wasn't more forthcoming. I didn't mean to scare you."
"No, Glitch was right. We've never required anyone's history or past name here, and we aren't starting now. But I appreciate the apology, and I'm glad you're okay." She wiped her eyes on her sleeve, and smiled more brightly. "Though now I've got to get on Glitch's case to start building another pod already."
"Hey, now. I just finished that one. Do you have any idea how long a fifth is going to take me?" Glitch objected, though his mood was just too good for the idea of more work to bring him down.
"I feel like I oughta explain. We were out takin' a walk a few blocks off, basically," Hammer said, sheepishly. "Kinda a risky thing to do, but Katie was getting stir crazy so I suggested changin' scenery for a bit. Next thing we knew, someone was firing real heavy plasma bolts at us. She hid, he went after her, and I went around the side of a building to get behind him…and that was pretty much that. I think he must've tried calling someone when he realized he lost track of me, but I never figured out who, and nobody showed up anyway. Katie kept his phone, and I, uh. I can show you where I buried him sometime, if you want."
"Maybe later, but I don't really need to see it," X said. "I know this is probably strange to hear coming from me, but I would have done the same in your place."
"Didn't like doing it," Hammer nodded. "But I couldn't let him hurt Katie, or anyone else either."
"Hey, X," Era finally said. She'd waited a while for a gap in the conversation, so X didn't make her wait any longer, turning his attention to her and the two reploids by her side. They'd all stripped as much of their Drifter red off as they could, with just a lingering stain remaining here and there.
"Era," X said. "Thank you. All three of you, really. You don't know me, but you risked your lives and gave up your homes for me. I'm in your debt."
"It's just what I had to do," Era said, suddenly shy under his gratitude. She tucked the unshaven part of her straight, black hair behind the her left auditory sensor, where it stayed for only a few seconds before sliding back out. "I mean…you're you, and Seren was going to kill you. I couldn't let that happen."
"Don't sell yourself short," X said with a smile he hoped was reassuring, but he'd stopped trusting his face a while ago now. "That took a lot of courage."
Either the smile wasn't what he hoped, or he'd struck some unseen nerve, or perhaps she'd struck it herself. Whatever the case, she crossed her arms over her knees and sighed. "It's not that…it's that I should have done something sooner. She's been like this since I joined, probably before that. I've helped kill a lot of reploids that probably didn't deserve it, and I knew it, but I didn't do anything to stop it."
"Well, that makes two of us." X let the smile turn sympathetic. "Make the most of what you can change now. That's all anyone can do." He turned to the other two reploids. "Analog, right? And Toxotes? Thank you."
"Don't thank me too much," Analog mumbled, tail in his hands. "I didn't do that much."
"You were going to shield all of us with your own rusty bucket of bolts," Toxotes countered. X wondered who'd designed them. Quite possibly they'd designed themselves, or at least made aftermarket modifications. White hair, black panels, acid green trim, and eyes to match made for a look that was…distinctive, to be certain. And a cloak? Well, fashion was a different thing for reploids than humans, X thought, or maybe it was functional somehow. Just because he'd picked up human-adjacent habits to avoid notice didn't mean that everyone did. Some wanted to be recognized as exactly what they were.
"I saw that. I was impressed. Give yourself more credit," X said, genuinely. "And you did the same without even flinching, Toxotes. I owe you all."
"Y-you're welcome," Analog said, and giddily wrung his tail until X was afraid it might pop apart.
"Yeah," Toxotes echoed, looking pleased with themselves. "Thanks."
"We gotta figure out where you three are staying," said Hammer, sitting down by the fire again.
"Are we staying?" Era asked, hopeful.
"If you want to," Kathy said. "It's only right. You saved one of our own."
One of our own? Now it was X's turn to feel bashfully giddy. He didn't have a tail to twist, but he did have a cane to fidget with quietly.
"We could move to my lab for a bit and give you our room," Glitch offered.
"You just want a recharging pod all to yourself," X joked, and Glitch had to process for eighty percent of a moment to realize that this was in fact a joke, where everyone could see it, and X was making it voluntarily.
"Hey!" he exclaimed, once he'd gotten over his shock. "That's only partly true. I'd move it but we haven't even wired the recharging shack for a fourth."
"Yeah, it's been pretty busy," Hammer admitted. "Kinda need better walls more than we need that right now."
"So it's fine. Besides, V here is still technically recovering from open everything surgery. If he needs a recharge, he gets a recharge, tech's orders." Glitch nodded, arms crossed. "Speaking of, V, you good for a bit? I'm gonna go make sure Mack's cool with it and move all our things that we don't actually have out of the room so the new kids can get settled."
X nodded. "I'm alright."
"Awesome. Back in a bit." He hopped to his feet, rumpled X's hair with one hand, and zoomed off at his usual speed, leaving X blinking bemusedly.
Valentina wolf-whistled the moment Glitch left earshot.
"It's not like that," X protested, even though it was a little bit like that and he knew it.
"Sure. I believe you~" she sing-songed, not believing him in the least. "Good for you, seriously. You deserve to not be so alone all the time."
X hung his head so that he didn't have to see her grinning so damn cheerfully and knowingly at him. Maybe if he hid behind his mess of hair he could pretend this wasn't happening the instant Glitch wasn't there.
"He had to make some temporary code modifications while he repaired me, that's all," X said. "I don't even know what you're imagining, but it wasn't anything…scandalous."
"Who said anything about scandal?" Valentina bubbled with laughter. "It's cute. Like, it's so obvious you're just happier around him."
"Is it?" X asked, wishing the concrete floor would open beneath his feet and bury him alive.
"Kinda is, yeah," Hammer agreed, amused. "He's definitely happier around you. Dunno if you noticed, since it's not like you can see him when you're not there, but he latched onto you pretty hard."
'>#NUM=2. I.13270-CMP: Coprocessor.' Valentina broadcast, quietly.
"What?" X asked, looking up again. "Two coprocessors? What's that mean?"
"You know," Valentina said, clearly expecting that he did, but his expression of confusion didn't waver, and her eyebrows shot up. "You don't know. How do you not know? You're a reploid too. You know this, right? You have to."
"Technically, I'm not, and no, I really have no idea," he answered. X wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he had a feeling it wasn't going to be optional.
"How do you not know?" Valentina repeated in theatrical disbelief. Her ability to dominate a conversation with no effort on her part was dizzying.
"I've never had time," X admitted, feeling awkward. "Reploid culture mostly happened while I was too busy fighting a war to notice."
"That's so sad," Valentina said. "Okay. Look. Guys, we have to teach him this stuff. We can't have the first reploid ever going around without any idea what his own culture even is."
"I'm an android," X corrected her, but it was a lost battle already and he knew it.
"So, you know about human relationships, though, right? We can start there?" Valentina began, and X regarded her blankly. He knew they existed, and had nothing much to do with him, and that was that. "Oh my God. Somebody help me out here, I'm going to spring a coolant leak."
"See, V, it's like this," Hammer explained. Even he wasn't immune to Valentina's conversational control. "There's coprocessors, which is what Glitch and Mack are. That's when you and someone else both decide you're gonna stick together and function like one unit, because you trust each other enough that either one can decide things for both of you. Life partner kinda thing."
"There's also peripherals," Valentina added. "That's kinda similar, but there's more discussion than coprocessors would have. Instead of functioning like one unit, you're two units, but in tandem. Like for example, Kathy and Hammer are peripherals."
"Who told you?" Hammer asked.
Kathy sputtered. "That's personal, thank you!"
"It's not subtle, guys, come on, like, everybody knows. Anyway. Of course peripherals can upgrade to coprocessors later if they decide to," Valentina continued, unfazed.
Era spoke up. "There's, um, remote connections, too. That's when you're in a relationship but you aren't physically near each other. It's, um, a lot harder to do without internet connectivity though, so you don't see it in the quarantine zone really, and they usually disconnect after a while anyway."
"If it's a one-sided connection and one person makes all the decisions, they're the transmitter," Valentina explained. "Then the other person's the receiver, and they're in a unilateral or unidirectional connection, as long as they're both fine with it. But if one's just being an overbearing exhaust vent, that's not a transmitter, that's a controller."
"What about Cirocco and Trigger," Hammer said, and Valentina lit up.
"Right! I didn't even say anything about firewalls. That's when it's based on protecting each other from dangerous stuff and not as much emotional compatibility. Like, you look at how much they like to bicker and growl and squawk at each other and you'd think they're conflicts, but they're not, they're just firewalls who like to argue."
"Wait," X said, holding up a hand. His head was spinning. "What are conflicts?"
"That's when you're in a network with someone you love to hate," Valentina answered brightly.
"Why would you do that in the first place?" X asked, even more dumbfounded. What in the world had his technological offspring been getting up to?
"Because some people just want to compete, V, duh," Valentina answered.
X involuntarily thought of Zero. Granted, he had never hated Zero in the least, but that did sound achingly familiar as a personality type. "Okay. Never mind, I can see that after all."
"Sometimes you get resolved conflicts, where they end up being peripherals or coprocessors, or you can end up with a critical conflict, where they actually hate each other and it turns violent—"
"Oh, oh, don't forget series and parallel," Kathy interjected, having recovered from her own forcible outing and gotten back in the spirit. She really couldn't sit idly by while someone else did all the teaching. "A two reploid network is always binary so it doesn't matter, but with more than that, you can have some members operating in series, where they are directly connected with each other, or in parallel, where they're part of the network but not directly connected."
X quietly resigned himself to not understanding anything just as Glitch and Mack returned. "What in the world are you even teaching him?" Glitch demanded to know. "He's making a face like you just pulled half his RAM out and I definitely heard someone broadcasting 'two coprocessors' earlier. Val, this is your fault."
"Guilty!" she chirped happily, flashing a peace sign next to one eye and beaming broadly.
"We didn't even get to the difference between analog and digital," said Analog, wryly.
"Or relays and switches," said Era.
"Ah. I miss when I was a relay. That was a lot of fun," Valentina said, dreamily. "Remember that, Glitch?"
"Yes, but no! We are not gonna scramble V's circuits with what a relay is, and we are really not gonna get into that time. Give the man a moment to process, would you? I turned around for two seconds and you're all conspiring to knock him offline with an information overload."
"What…is a relay?" X asked, regretting it but being unable to stop the words from tumbling out.
"That's when you've got a potential binary network, but they haven't actually initialized, and you add a third who's serial with both of them—"
"—Okay, that's enough for one day—" Glitch interrupted, while Mack snickered quietly at his expense.
"—and the relay tries to upgrade the network to a peer-to-peer network—"
"I should not have asked," X said, though nobody heard him.
"—which is what it's called if everyone is in series with each other, and if it's a network where everyone's in parallel except for with one member, that makes them the server of a hosted network, but most networks are mixed anyway—"
"I warned you, didn't I?" Glitch asked X. "I told you about Val and her thing with this."
"—oh! And if you add at least one human, that's called a bionic network—"
Glitch did a double take, suddenly back in the conversation despite himself. "That's fake, Val. I've never seen that."
"It's not fake!" she proclaimed. "I've been in a bionic network. A peer-to-peer one even. It just takes really specific kinds of humans and reploids to make it work. Like, some humans are really into unilateral transmissions, except it's more of a biological thing for them and they don't call them transmitters and receivers, they call them—"
"I do not wanna know whatever you're about to say," Glitch proclaimed, loudly enough to finally interrupt her and with his hands over his auditory sensors. "I really don't. You have found the limit of my obsessive need to know every possible fact in the world. Congratulations. I didn't think it was possible."
"Okay, but imagine the look on other people's faces you'll get to see when you tell them about it," Valentina pointed out, slyly.
Glitch hesitated, mouth still open. He closed it, visibly processing this idea, and dropped his hands back to his sides. "...Alright, you got me, but tell me later. And not in all the gory organic detail I know you're gonna get into, I don't need to know."
"Fiiiine," she sighed. "Nobody here ever appreciates my artistry."
"Anyway, back on subject, and without all of you snapping V's motherboard over your knee because he hasn't been through enough already or anything, our room is free for you three to move into," Glitch reported, with a nod towards Era, Analog, and Toxotes.
"It's been a long time since anyone actually lived in the central building," Kathy said. "Not since the beginning when it was still just Hammer and me. Oh, here, let me show you to where you can stay, now that we've got a place. I'm sure you must be tired."
Kathy led the three ex-Drifters to their quarters, such as they were. Hammer excused himself to go relieve Flip from watch, and Valentina looked about ready to begin explaining things to X again until Glitch intercepted.
"Oh hell no, it's his bedtime. Technician's orders," he said.
"Okay, but tomorrow, I'm giving you the full education," she threatened with a smile. "Rest well, you three~"
Glitch gave X a hand up and they made their slow way to the lab. "Ugh. Sorry about that."
"Is that really…do reploids have relationships like that?" X asked, still trying to process it. "It sounds so complicated. I'd heard the terms in passing, but I never knew the context."
"Yeah. Humans have relationships based on like…attraction and romance, generally, right? Since they reproduce, uh, in opposite sex pairs. You know. Really generalizing it, but close enough for conversation. Reploids don't have any of that, obviously, but we're still human-like enough that we build relationships with each other. Just, they're based on very different things, so they're pretty different, and all the differences got named after what they're called in >I.00100-COM: Diagnostic broadcast." He unlocked the lab and let all three of them in.
Inside, he'd cleared as much clutter as he could from the floor, and stacked an armload of sheets and blankets on the workbench. "That makes sense so far," X nodded along, "but it doesn't seem like it should be that complicated."
"Reploid relationships are usually trust-based," Mack explained. "I trust Glitch with my life in all things, and he trusts me the same way."
"Wouldn't that be true of," X thought for a moment, trying to recall Valentina's rather rushed explanation, "firewalls, too?"
Mack nodded, insofar as it could. "Yes, but that's a specifically combat-oriented connection. Firewalls might not trust each other in other contexts, and might not even get along all that well, even if they'd die to protect each other. Coprocessors that don't get along that well usually end up being conflicts instead."
"And peripherals are…they just don't trust each other as well as coprocessors?" X asked.
"Not exactly," Glitch clarified. "They verify decisions with each other a lot more. Coprocessors trust that they don't need to ask, peripherals trust that they will ask. Here, I found this. Pretty sure it's yours." He pulled something from a box and held it out to X: Zero's saber. "I swapped a new-ish battery in, but, uh, I figured you might want the old one, so I kept it."
"Thank you. It's pretty important to me." X accepted it with both hands, twisting his cane apart and inserting the saber into the shaft, where it just fit, then screwing it back together. "So there's also networks…?"
Glitch stopped in front of the stack of blankets. "Yeah. Humans mostly pair bond, for biological reasons, but reploids don't have any reasons like that, so we just kinda…" He trailed off, making a vague motion with one hand as if he was tracing a mess of unorganized cables. "The flowcharts of some larger networks can get pretty complicated. Without any biological sex and when gender is just whatever you want to be called, there's a lot fewer limitations on who can network with whom, compared to humans. Even someone like Val, well, she's always just one upgrade away from being a different, y'know. Setup. So it doesn't really matter."
"Huh." X had never even contemplated…any of this, really. Of course there had to be a social system. He'd just been on the front lines in a war where there wasn't time for fraternizing at all, with anyone, about anything. No wonder he felt so adrift, he realized. The only kind of culture he'd ever belonged to was the Maverick Hunters, and that hinged on being an active Hunter…and also not irregular.
Something else dawned on him then. "I must seem even more broken from anyone else's perspective, if the whole system is based on trust."
"It's not that uncommon. Life isn't kind to us," Mack said.
X thought for a while, taking a seat on an office chair. When I told him my name, in the tunnels…oh, no. I'm a fool. I had no idea until this moment what I must have sounded like. But then, would that assumption be wrong, if that's how reploids see things? I do trust him. With my life, no less, even though it's terrifying. What does that mean, then?
"Are we in a network?" X asked, point blank.
Glitch paused, midway through picking up the blankets he'd stacked on his bench. "Only if you want to be," he said, after a few moments, and without looking in X's direction. "I'm not gonna say I wouldn't like that, because I would, but I'm also not gonna try to tell you that you've gotta define how you feel based on some rules you only just learned."
"I don't know what I want," X admitted. "I'm still trying to get myself to understand that I'm even allowed to want, let alone decide what to want…but I'll think it over, if it's fine with Mack too," he amended, looking to the C-15.
"Reploids apply the transitive property a lot more liberally than humans," it said. "I value Glitch's life as I do my own, and he values your life as he does his own. He is my coprocessor. If you'll have it, I would value you as he does."
X blinked. "Is it that simple?"
"Yes," Mack replied. "For once, it is. That's what coprocessors are, essentially. The emotions behind the loyalty can be anything, as long as the loyalty exists."
"Huh," X marveled. "Well…I'm not sure if I'd make a very good coprocessor, because I've only just started learning how to…be a person, I guess, but I know that I trust you, Glitch. And you trust me and Mack both, so I know I can trust Mack too. Both of you did come to rescue me, and I'm," he paused, searching for words. "More than grateful. I'm stunned, and amazed. I'm still processing that anybody would do that for me after knowing me for only a week, but I would do the same for either of you now. So…for whatever that's worth, I'll sleep on it."
The corners of Glitch's mouth tugged upwards into a silly smile that he couldn't have contained if his life had depended on it. "Ah, Val is gonna be so unbearably smug about this, whatever ends up happening," he laughed, shaking the blankets out one at a time and making three beds on the floor, one of them much smaller than the other two.
"Whatever you decide, we antiques need to stick together," Mack agreed, as cheeky as it was possible to sound with no vocal emotional range at all.
"There. How are you on charge, V? And Mack? 'Cause I'm dying."
"I'm tired, but topped off," X answered.
"Just take the pod," Mack said. "If anybody fights you about it, I'll cut their legs off."
"Please do not. I don't need the extra work putting them back on," Glitch sighed dramatically. The extension cable was still attached to the pod, so he simply reached around his own back and popped it into place, where it docked with a click and a hum. He picked a pile of blankets and sat down. "I'm gonna defrag like a paperweight tonight."
X sat down next to him, pulling the blankets into a cocoon. "You really are the most computer kind of reploid I've ever met, sometimes."
"Yeah? You're definitely the most human one I've ever met, and no saying you're actually an android, you know exactly what I mean. Maybe that's why you're so interesting. Opposite polarities or something."
The moment X settled down his systems demanded rest in no uncertain terms, his log filling with prompts to defragment. Maybe his self-repair would even accomplish something for a change. The floor of the lab was cold, but Glitch had given him the most blankets by far, and he was well insulated. He appreciated it. "Sleep well," he said, and he was out like a light before he could even register Glitch and Mack's responses.